We at Other Worlds Austin are proud to introduce the newest member of our team, Eric Harrelson! Eric is coming on board as a Programmer and Screenwriting Director. Readers of our blog are already quite familiar with Eric. In the past few years, he has contributed articles on Nostalgia in Stranger Things, Futurism, the rise of AI and cosmic metaphysics. He also is a writer and contributor for Blood Over Texas, appearing on their monthly podcast, and has worked for the Alamo Drafthouse in various capacities, including transportation and talent liaison for Fantastic Fest.

This year our Screenwriting Contest has a new sponsor, Save the Cat!®, new exciting prizes, and new deadlines (hint: early deadline is April 30th). With that in mind, we figured it was time to finally get a team member to focus on running the competition. We are looking forward to the vision he is going to bring to OWA in this new role. Read on for a little insight into Eric and be sure to say hi to him at our next event!

Where are you from originally and what brought you to Austin?

I'm originally from Ohio. I visited Austin in 2003 and really liked the city, so I moved here all by my lonesome with all of my worldly possessions stuffed in my 1988 Volkswagen Scirocco.

What drew you to want to join the OWA team?

I did an interview with Bears for Blood Over Texas the first year of the festival, and covered the whole thing as well. I liked how the festival was run and I dug the programming. Dan approached me the next year and asked if I'd like to help out as part of the screening team, and I jumped at the chance. After that I may have mentioned a billion times that I wanted to be more involved if they had something for me, and this year they asked if I wanted to come on as Screenwriting Director.

What are you looking forward to the most being the Screenwriting Director?

I hope I get to read a script in its infancy, and then see it turn into something down the line.

What is your favorite SciFi TV show or film?

Well, I love all the heady existential stuff, 2001, Solaris, Moon. But I also love Star Trek: The Next Generation. It has aged remarkably well I think.

As I mentioned, I do love the existential stuff. But I think what I like most about SciFi is the shear possibility. You want to write a story about Cyborg Tigers that were originally intended to be used as weapons by the Chinese government, but then turned on their masters and created a resplendent

Cyborg Tiger City and are now petitioning to join the UN? Yep, go right on ahead. Is your story an alternate history where Napoleon succeeded and the French rule both Western and Eastern Europe, and we all get 4 weeks paid vacation, 2 hour lunches and universal health care? Boom. Done.

What do you like to do when you are not doing stuff for OWA?

I do a podcast a monthly podcast as part of Blood Over Texas, I read books and comics, and I play the vidja games sometimes as well.

Is there anything else that people should know about you?

I am an unabashed fan of Professional Wrestling, and have been ever since I was a kid back in the 80's. First wrestler I marked out for was Jake the Snake Roberts.

As you may have heard, shortly after the inaugural 2014 festival, we pooled all our profits and launched teammember Kelsey Hockmuller into space to discover the true meaning of Science Fiction. After six months of exploration Kelsey went mysteriously silent. The great news is the Other Worlds Austin team was able to raise enough money in the first month of 2017 submissions being open to send a rescue mission to save Kelsey and her crew.

On Wednesday, April 19th, the Other Worlds Austin Team is inviting the press and public to screen TELEIOS with them at Flix Brewhouse to commemorate the planned launch the next day. In TELIOS, a deep space mining vessel has been adrift for two years. It is suspected the crew brutally killed each other, but the reason for the bloodbath is unknown. A rescue crew made of genetically modified "perfect" humans is sent to find if there are any survivors, what happened and why. The director of TELEIOS, Ian Truitner, will be in attendance for a Q&A after the film. He is also helping with the mission as a Special Consultant.

Ian has been working with the OWA team to propose and solve potential mission difficulties for the Kelseios, such as in this one trouble-shot by Senior Programmer and Event Director Dan Repp.

Scenario Code Name: Sulaco

Threat: Xenomorph

Scenario Description: An alien Xenomorph has breached the ship's defense and lurks within the many corridors. It is fast and able to blend in with the Gothic interior design of the ship. Over the last year and a half, Kelsey and her crew have hopefully overcome the odds and survived, but most likely the Xenomorph has hunted them down, one by one. The crew member with the greatest odds of survival is Jones, the cat.

Research: After extensive research, I have deduced that the best weapons to use against a Xenomorph are a big vat of molten metal, a mechanized exoskeleton suit, or hiring a mercenary Predator. Unfortunately, we are a small festival and have spent most of our budget on the ship.

I went with a less conventional approach, using empathy to find out what is really making the Xenomorph species so aggressive. Days of brainstorming and role-playing ensued with no real answers until I felt a burn in my stomach and an unbridled rage. All of the pickles and wine that I ingested over the long nights of spit-balling had caused my stomach to get upset. That’s when I realized - it’s the acid in me that is making me uncomfortable and irritated. The Xenomorph’s bodies are full of acid. That’s why they’re so angry!

I found a gun expert whose only credential was that she was a Texan and we modified shotgun shells with Calcium Carbonate. In theory, after a Xenomorph is shot with the ammo essentially laced with TUMS antacid, the acid in their bodies will be balanced and they will become docile.

Please keep Kelsey in your thoughts. She is screaming right now and no one can hear her. Proceeds from the TELEIOS screening will be used to buy Astronaut Ice Cream for the crew of the Kelseios.

The 3rd Annual Other Worlds Austin Star Wars Day event has gotten a little more political, Empire politics that is. OWA official designer and amazing tattoo artist David Poe has created an exclusive commemorative #NotMyEmperor poster which will be screenprinted by Ramona Press and available only at the Thursday, May 4, 2017 event at 4th Tap Brewing Co-operative.

A $5 donation gets you a poster and ticket to the TAUNTAUN OF GOODIES raffle. Included in the raffle prize are gift cards for Flix Brewhouse, I Luv Video, and Dragon's Lair Comics and Fantasy, an Ewok plush toy, a Jyn Erso POP! Bobble-Head, a 45-minute photoshoot with OWA friend and shooter Becca Gamache ($189 value), a bootleg BluRay of the legendary Star Wars Holiday Special with many of the original 1978 CBS commercials that ran during the original airing, and finally, an exclusive tour of the brewery with the 4th Tap Brewers for you and your friends. We have a limited run of 100 posters - so no more than one per person, until they sell out, but you can buy as many raffle tickets as you like.

As always, our free event features the best and latest Star Wars fan films! We will have a costume contest sponsored by and with prizes from Dragon’s Lair Comics and Fantasy.

We will have taproom-only limited releases created specifically for the event by 4th Tap founders and brewers: "The Fist of the Empire,” "The Iron Knight,” and the "The Voss Mystic," representing the blended or balanced aspects of the Force.

4th Tap is at 10615 Metric Blvd, and the event will start at 6pm. The Costume contest and other festivities will begin at 7:30.

Other Worlds Austin SciFi Screenwriting Contest sponsor Save the Cat!® has just published their fifth book, focusing for the first time on Indies. In his best-selling book, Save the Cat!® Goes to the Movies, Blake Snyder provided 50 “beat sheets” to 50 films, mostly studio-made. Now his student, screenwriter and novelist Salva Rubio, applies Blake’s principles to 50 independent, auteur, European and cult films (again with 5 beat sheets for each of Blake’s 10 genres) in Save the Cat!® Goes to the Indies.

From international sensations like THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT to promising debuts like PI, from small films that acquired cult status like THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE to Euro-blockbusters like THE FULL MONTY, from unexpected gems like BEFORE SUNRISE to textbook classics such as THE 400 BLOWS, from DOGVILLE to DRIVE and BOOGIE NIGHTS to CINEMA PARADISO, here are 50 movies that fit both the “indie” label and Blake Snyder’s 15 beats.

Every finalist in the Other Worlds Austin SciFi Screenplay Competition will receive a complete set of all five Save the Cat!® books but every entrant into the competition receives a 20% discount of the most recent three books, including the just released, Save the Cat!® Goes to the Indies.

The Earlybird deadline of the Other Worlds Austin SciFi Screenplay Competition is April 30th.

By Courtney Hazlett — There are those memories [in life] that are solidified permanently. Those moments that, for some reason, were life-changing... One of these for me was the first time that I ever watched MIGHTY MORPHIN POWER RANGERS.

Kelseios: Scenario 2

By Tessa Morrison — Another transmission would come through as we'd grow closer to the last known location of the missing vessel. A distress signal. Likely riddled with static and alarming behavior...that seems on the level. So of course we would go investigate in that case...

Searching for Answers in Space

By Eric Harrelson — We as a species are only vaguely aware of anything outside of our own planet. When confronted with the vastness of space and the infinite number of other possible worlds, it’s no wonder we question the nature of our existence.